Conventional Layer 2 forwarding engines often use virtual local area network (VLAN) based forwarding. Each packet in the forwarding engine is subjected to policies configured on the associated VLAN. Layer 3 interfaces that support forwarding are assigned an internal VLAN and the policies configured on the interfaces are configured on the internal VLAN assigned to that interface. This implementation results in a number of drawbacks, including, limited scalability and impact to client roam rate in wireless applications.
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